By day it’s an office, by night a makeshift home: faced with the strict containment measures that are paralyzing Shanghai in the midst of an epidemic outbreak, employees in China are camping at their workplace to continue their activity at all costs.
China’s economic capital is facing its biggest surge of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. To deal with it, the authorities have been confining almost all of the 25 million inhabitants to their homes for more than two weeks.
Putting Shanghai under cover was initially supposed to last four days and be done in two stages: first the eastern part of the city, which has the main international airport and the gigantic business district with emblematic skyscrapers.
Then, the western half with its famous historic artery of the Bund, along the Huangpu, the river that crosses Shanghai.
Feeling the tide turn, some chose from the first hours of confinement to stay at their workplace to limit the economic impact.
This is the case of Romeo, a Chinese who prefers to use a pseudonym to testify.
In his company, “people sleep on the first and second floor, and (the rest of the time) everyone is at their post,” this employee who works in finance told AFP.
By necessity, interactions between colleagues are essential even after office hours, without encroaching on intimacy, assures Romeo.
“Everyone puts a distance and respects that of the others […] We don’t force ourselves to talk.”
A luxury that is far from the norm. On social networks, videos of factory workers sleeping on makeshift mattresses while their colleagues continue production are not uncommon.
Overpriced noodles
Containment, initially announced as a gradual and localized measure, seems set to drag on as the rest of the world learns to live with the virus.
The measure, which heavily penalizes supplies, caught many Shanghainese off guard.
“I have never thought about my meals so much and watched my consumption,” one of them, Frank Tsai, told AFP, who only stored food for four days, the duration of confinement initially announced by authorities.
Seven days of confinement later, the portions become “smaller and smaller” as the reserves run out, underlines from his apartment this entrepreneur, who normally organizes conferences.
Ms. Ma, a resident who prefers to conceal her full identity, claims to have paid 400 yuan (58 euros) for a soda and instant noodles, as resupply is so lacking in Shanghai.
In recent weeks, food prices have jumped in the city, while at the gates of the metropolis thousands of heavy goods vehicles are stranded.
Delivery applications, ultra-popular in China, are struggling to keep up with the demand which has exploded, due to a shortage of delivery people.
Sneak outs
Shanghai, a metropolis in normal times in full effervescence, has experienced an unusual calm in recent weeks, broken only by announcements from the authorities to stay at home, broadcast by drones and… robot-dogs.
Pet owners have recourse to the D system, outings being strictly prohibited even for small canine needs.
“I taught my dog to do indoors. But […] to keep both of them sane, I take him out (still on the sly) at 3 a.m., “said a Shanghainese man who wished to remain anonymous.
The Health Ministry reported more than 23,000 new positive cases in the city on Tuesday. Very high figures for China, one of the last countries in the world to apply a zero COVID strategy.
In order to ensure the isolation of those who tested positive from the rest of the population, the authorities have installed tens of thousands of beds in exhibition centers or prefabricated structures.
Leona Cheng, a student in her twenties, was released on Friday after 13 days of “unsustainable” quarantine. “Too many people are catching the virus, the infection rate is skyrocketing,” she says.